August 2009

August 26, 2009

I can vividly remember the first time I saw David Doubilet's photography in National Geographic Magazine, they were obviously images made by a great photographer who happened to be underwater as opposed to images made by a great diver who happened to have an underwater camera. Rather than accepting the limitations of working submerged, Doubilet always seems to push the boundaries to tell fascinating, beautiful, visual stories.

I don't know if he was the first person to do an "over and under" shot, where the surface of the water splits the image, but he has certainly perfected the technique over the years. I have certainly NOT perfected the technique, but on a recent commission for the Guardian Weekend Magazine I had a pretty good shot at it. Part of the secret is in the kit, you have to use an underwater housing with a domed port, the bigger the better, so that there is a reasonable distance from the waterline to the lens. The water needs to be very calm, because the peaks and troughs of even small waves will make the water-line obscure most of the image, and also clear, to minimize the difference in exposure above and below the water. Lastly you need something to photograph: Doubilet has photographed all the world's oceans and most of the species of fish and mammals in them, I have photographed a mackerel. I did grill and eat it on the beach later though, and you can't do that with a whale shark, or can you?

August 24, 2009

Perpignan week is just around the corner, offering its usual intoxicating blend of awkward portfolio moments (is a urinal an inappropriate place for a viewing?), awkward badge-reading moments (Q: What does a black stripe mean this year? A: My agency just died) and, erm, intoxication. Somehow, despite the regular sponsorship crises and constant mutterings about how much more civilized Arles is, Perpignan keeps drawing us back, year after year.

Except this year I'm not going, for a number of reasons to do with family commitments, needing to get some work done and all that but also (and to be honest this is probably the main reason) because I don't like it. And I know we all say that sometimes and then we go and we have a great time, and I have gone, and I have had a great time but I also think I wouldn't mind never going again. It's a Perpignan paradox of attraction and revulsion, an annual gathering of otherwise solitary animals at an overcrowded water-hole to fight for Alpha status and mating (i.e. syndication) rights before limping back to their lonely hunting grounds to lick their wounds and re-do their portfolios. So for this year at least I declare myself out of the photographic gene pool, but for those of you who feel the thrum of hot, heavy blood in your veins and taste the bitter, metal tang of adrenalin as you prepare yourselves, especially if for the first time, to enter the arena, I would like to humbly offer a few tips on how to survive, if not enjoy, the experience.

1. Take a very small portfolio, or better yet none at all: It's an often observed but rarely acted-upon fact that Perpignan must be one of the worst environments to show work. The frenetic pace and awesome quantities of images will take their toll on the most experienced picture editor and presenting a massive portfolio is like dishing up a whole lasagna to someone in the middle of a 12 course banquet. Better to take a small, perfectly formed taste of your work or a single story you want to sell. Make your work the sharp sorbet that clears their palate before they have to wade back into the stodge and you are more likely to be remembered and appreciated. You might reasonably decide not to show anything and use the opportunity to gather contacts to follow up on later, when your work will have a better chance of getting through. You'll have more time to look at the exhibitions too.

2. You won't need all your camera kit: It might seem like carrying 20kg of gear around makes you appear "ready for anything" but, curiously, it often gives the opposite impression.

3. Try to eat well: I'm always mystified by how crap my diet becomes in Perpignan, this is still France for ****'s sake and yet here is another limp sandwich-jambon-fromage and god-awful coffee. It's something to do with the timing of things I think, with the projections cutting into good eating hours in the evenings and the good lunch places packed out. I have tended to choose food and good conversation over photography in the evenings in recent years and as a result I've had a much more productive time. Last year I also found a really good pizza place just over the river from La Poste, got a takeaway and took it into the one evening projection I saw (the Gendarmes on the gate took a couple of slices as "payage" but hey). Also, it's peach season so get your five-a-day, your mum would agree.

4. Don't expect too much: If the most that comes out of it is some inspiration from other works, getting to see a few editors' faces and building up your contacts that's probably pretty good going.

5. Beware the agencies: In recent years the agencies have been chucking around syndication contracts like confetti because, I guess, quantity of images is now almost as important as quality of images. There were a lot of shiny eyed graduates last year signing up as though their dreams had been answered but I wonder whether the deals they got really delivered what they were expecting. If it's a good deal it will still be a good deal the week after the excitement when you've had a chance to study it.

August 21, 2009

I just found out that the BAJ (Big Advertising Job) has fallen through. Apparently there is a different meaning to the phrase "100% certain" in the ad world, well of course there is now that I think about it but I suppose I thought that inaccurate claims and wild exaggerations were only part of the product of ad agencies rather than part of their working practices. Still it doesn't do to bite the hand that may, one day, actually feed, so I shouldn't criticize too much. Live and learn...

It's hard to unknit the regular, perennial discussions about the way things have gone downhill since the "golden age" of photojournalism from the real concerns about the way traditional business models have been challenged by the digital media age. The bottom line is that in an age of unrestricted digital diffusion the image has become more used and less valued. The potential audience for an image I shoot for a magazine today is bigger than ever, thanks to the internet (and the single figure "web fee" attached on to my invoice). The problem is that most of those people are seeing my images for free (and that's why the "web fee" is in single figures).

There's lots of nonsense theorizing about how business models might evolve in this climate, this review of the recent book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson, effectively counters a lot of the more alarming ideas about the value of "content" that used to be called word and pictures. Even so, as a creative professional it's hard to feel comfortable with phrases like "information wants to be free" fighting to become part of the new business lexicon and the vague idea that by charging someone to use your photography you are foolishly clinging to ideas of information ownership that are so outdated as to be laughable.

August 03, 2009

The finalists and winners of this year's Ian Parry Scholarship have been announced and will be on show at the Getty Images Gallery from August 5th. The scholarship, which is open to those studying photography full-time and anyone under 24 years of age, regularly brings great new talents to a wider audience. If you're eligible you should definitely consider applying next year.

One episode of the recent, brilliant, "Genius of Photography" series began with a magical sequence. A group of people set to work blacking out an ornately decorated room. When every chink of light is extinguished a man cuts a small hole in the black plastic over one of the windows and suddenly the whole room becomes a ghostly mirror of the scene outside, a venetian canal as it turns out, complete with vaporetti and gondolas gliding silently across the ceiling. This, of course, is a camera obscura.

I've seen camera obscuras before, I remember visiting one in Edinburgh as a child and being a bit non-plussed, but something about the sequence in Venice did impress me. I think the idea of turning a normal room in to a camera (a joke there for the latin scholars?) was what appealed, and so, yesterday, armed with duct tape and sheets, I set about turning my office into a camera obscura.

The image on the left is the light coming through the 1/2 inch diameter hole that I cut in my blind. The projected image on the right wasn't particularly bright, but with the help of a digital camera and a 30sec exposure you get a pretty good idea of the scene outside my office window (I flipped it over in case you were wondering).